Governments Must Commit Trillions In Climate Finance To Protect People’s Health

Baku, November 11, 2024:- Ahead of the COP29 Climate Summit in Azerbaijan, the Global Climate and Health Alliance is calling on wealthy countries to protect people's health by committing to provide climate finance in the order of a trillion dollars annually, in addition to global action with leadership from highest emitting countries to end of the fossil fuel era.

More than 100 organisations from across the international health and climate community have endorsed nine recommendations for the summit in ‘A COP29 for People and Planet’, a policy brief produced through consultations convened by the Global Climate and Health Alliance. These organisations call upon Parties at COP29 to commit to and deliver ambitious climate action sufficient to protect and promote the health of people and the planet. (See below for the nine recommendations)

Climate Finance
During the summit, important decisions on climate finance will determine the level and form of finance developing countries will receive, to aid them in addressing severe climate impacts on their populations’ health and economies, in better preparation and resilience of health systems and across sectors, and in ensuring full access to safe, clean sources of energy while reducing emissions. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) executive secretary Simon Stiell recently said that while levels of climate finance have increased “trillions more are needed”.

“At COP29, governments must agree to an ambitious and updated climate finance commitment, the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG)”, said Jess Beagley, Policy Lead at the Global Climate and Health Alliance. “This must be a minimum of one trillion in US dollars, predominantly based on grants, not loans, and respond to the needs of developing countries across adaptation, loss and damage and mitigation. The decision on the NCQG at COP29 will ultimately determine the success of the conference and will weigh significantly on the degree to which people’s health is protected in the decision making. Failure to deliver adequate finance will be a death sentence for millions.”

“Governments at COP29 must provide the climate finance that we need in this moment of urgency,” said Tara Daniel, Senior Manager, Policy, at the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO). “COP29 presents an opportunity for this broken system, which harms health and gender equality, to change. Governments must recognize the imperative of cancelling debt, which undermines expenditures in climate action and resilience, and must make grant-based investments particularly and especially in adaptation and loss and damage. They must shift from prioritising the profits associated with the fossil fuels and wars driving the climate crisis to instead caring about investments in the health and rights of all people. These fundamental shifts demand political will.”

COP29 in Baku also marks a key opportunity for governments to make good on their COP28 “signal” to move away from fossil fuels. The recent statement from the UNFCCC executive secretary also stated that “to protect the progress we made at COP28, and convert the pledges in the UAE Consensus”, we need to “triple renewable energy, double energy efficiency, boost adaptation and transition away from fossil fuels - into real-world, real-economy results”.

“Fossil fuels are the leading driver of climate change. The transformation of our energy sources is an essential step towards protecting people’s health from climate change, as well as from the myriad health harms of fossil fuels such as from air pollution, toxic contamination of water and soil, displacement, and more”, said Dr Jeni Miller, Executive Director of the Global Climate and Health Alliance. “At COP28, governments called for a transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems. To make good on that, at COP29 they must deliver the critical next steps of hammering out how, and by when, they will achieve this fossil fuel phase out. Implementation plans must include a commitment to no expansion of fossil fuel extraction and infrastructure, as well as concrete plans and timelines for delivering a just phase-out and transition to renewable energy. Currently 750 million people still live without adequate access to electricity. With international financial and technical support for distribution of renewable energy sources, these communities could leapfrog over the toxic, fossil-fuel based development that has left 99% of the world’s population gasping for clean air.”

“This year has underlined the growing impacts of a warming climate on people’s health and wellbeing; extreme heat in India led to 700 deaths and over 40,000 cases of heat stroke. Climate-exacerbated rains caused the collapse of a major dam in Nigeria, killing 320, affecting 1.3 million, and leading to malnutrition in over half a million children under five. In the US, 48 of the 50 US states are experiencing moderate or worse drought, impacting agriculture and increasing fire risk. Europe has seen several severe floods this year, the most recent being the devastating events in Spain, which has left hundreds dead and dozens missing - climate impacts just keep coming.”

“Every year, fossil fuels contribute to the premature deaths of over eight million people worldwide, largely through air pollution”, said Dr Lujain Al Quodmani, former President of the World Medical Association. “COP29 must move towards fossil fuel phase-out which will not only have great benefits for the health and current and future generations, but will have immense economic benefits by cutting the burden and financial costs on health systems driven by climate impacts and air pollution”.

“I live and work as an emergency physician in the subarctic”, said Dr Courtney Howard, MD, Global Climate and Health Alliance Board Vice Chair, and Emergency Physician in Yellowknife, Canada, who is attending COP29. “Last year my 100-bed hospital, in Yellowknife, Canada, had to evacuate due to wildfire risk, and we had to transport all of our patients over 600 miles by military plan to the nearest available healthcare facility. Around the world, medical professionals and health systems are dealing with the health impacts from climate warming and fossil fuel pollution. COP29 must provide solutions that reduce the fossil fuel drivers of disease and fund the protection of health and health systems.”

In Dubai in 2023, countries signed up to the COP28 Declaration on Climate and Health; while COP29 will not include a dedicated climate and health Ministerial, decisions made throughout the summit will be crucial to people’s health. In support of this, host countries from COP26-COP30 are expected to announce the establishment of a “Continuity Coalition” during COP29 to ensure health continues to feature strongly during future COPs.

“With the COP28 Declaration on Climate and Health, over 150 national governments recognised many of the critical intersections of climate change and health”, said Miller. “These governments and over 40 more again recognised the links when they adopted a new Resolution on Climate and Health, at the World Health Assembly in May. Now it is time to demonstrate what they are doing about it, by reporting at future UNFCCC meetings on the real action they are taking to protect people’s health – including, coordinated climate and health action across sectors, additional finance to address the health impacts of climate change, and making health a fundamental measure of our progress and success across all climate action.”

“In Africa, global warming is not just a climate crisis but a life crisis; communities see it as worsening health risks, water scarcity challenges, food scarcity, and loss of livelihoods”, said Friday Phiri, Climate Change Health Advocacy Lead, Amref Health Africa. “COP29 must deliver an ambitious, balanced, fair and just outcome that sets the world on a course that effectively addresses climate change, on several key points, such as on adaptation, loss and damage, finance and mitigation support.”

NDCs
During COP29, some parties to the Paris Agreement are expected to present the third iterations (NDCs 3.0) of their national climate action plans, called “Nationally Determined Contributions”, and the deadline for all countries to submit their updated NDCs is February 2025.

Under the Paris Agreement countries define their own pathway to meet the targets all committed to in the Agreement. Every five years these are required to be updated, with each update “ratcheting” up commitments until the world is fully on the path to limiting warming to 1.5C, as agreed. The last round of NDCs left a substantial gap between national commitments, and the commitments actually needed to limit warming to safe levels; and few governments fully integrated health throughout their climate plans.

“The window of opportunity to avoid dangerous climate tipping points is on the verge of closing, and we are seeing in real time the devastating impacts of an increasingly chaotic climate on people’s health, and on the health systems that care for them. Governments must meet the moment, making this next round of NDC commitments ambitious and concrete enough to bend the curve of climate change. While the majority of NDCs 2.0 mentioned health, far fewer describe healthy climate action in the health sector and across sectors, include costings and budgets to support these actions, or define targets to report on progress. During COP29, NDCs 3.0 must address these aspects to adequately protect people and our planet”, said Beagley.

Health Metrics
As health discourse gains momentum in the UNFCCC space, it is vital to also monitor health outcomes of climate action. “By COP29, governments will be midway through a two-year process, as part of work under the Global Goal on Adaptation, to set clear indicators for measuring how well countries are adapting to climate change, including how well people’s health is being protected in the face of climate impacts”, added Beagley. “In Baku, governments must agree on the process that will ensure robust health metrics are defined next year at COP30.”

The Nine Recommendations from ‘A COP29 for People and Planet’:

1. Implementation Reporting: Define mechanisms to allow follow up and reporting on agreed priorities for action on climate change and health set out in the UAE COP28 Declaration on Climate and Health.
2. Policy Coherence: Embed health and climate actions, targets, and associated economic considerations, in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and other national policies, supported by strengthened intersectoral coordination.
3. Enabling Finance: Adopt a New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on climate finance of necessary quantity and quality, without which health-promoting climate action will be infeasible.
4. Just Energy Transitions: Commit to the fast, fair, full and funded phase-out of fossil fuels including an immediate end to all expansion of fossil fuel production and infrastructure and a rapid and just transition to renewable energy as a public health imperative.
5. Holistic Adaptation: Lay foundations for adaptation planning and monitoring that reflects physical and mental health and wellbeing outcomes.
6. Loss And Damage Response: Capitalise the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage to address the health and wider needs of impacted communities, while positioning the Santiago Network on Loss and Damage to support quantification of health losses and damages.
7. Resilient And Sustainable Agriculture And Ecosystems: Prioritise food and agricultural systems and land use that protect biodiversity and promote nutrition security, including sustainable healthy diets that are affordable and accessible.
8. Enhanced Integrity: Manage conflicts of interest by strengthening policies to reduce undue influence of health- and climate-harming polluters in UNFCCC policymaking.
9. Collaboration With Most Impacted Communities: Create environments which enable guidance for healthy climate action to be provided by most affected communities through their safe and meaningful engagement and participation.

Download: A COP29 for People and Planet: https://climateandhealthalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/COP29-Digital-Report.pdf

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